AOPA Pilot Magazine - March 2013 - 32

BRIEFING

HISTORY

Wright factory
to be preserved

THIS HISTORIC photo of the

Wright factory buildings is
from the Library of Congress.
An artist’s rendering of the
planned redevelopment
(below left).

Continuing a legacy
B Y A LTO N K . M A R S H

EFFORTS ARE IN PROGRESS at
Dayton, Ohio, to save and display the first aircraft factory in
the United States—which, since
1919, has been used to build
car parts. General Motors first
bought it in 1919 and built parts
made by AC Delco (Dayton
Electric Company) and Delphi
until 2008.
Home Avenue Redevelopment LLC has recently taken
title to the site that includes
the historic Wright Company
factory buildings. The acqui-

sition puts the company in
position to redevelop the
Delphi plant for commercial use while preserving the
Wright Company factory site
for public use as an element of
the Dayton Aviation Heritage
National Historical Park. In
2009, President Barack Obama
signed a law that expanded the
national park’s boundaries to
include the factory site and
Hawthorn Hill, the Wright
family mansion in Oakwood.
32 | AOPA PILOT March 2013

Today the factories sit surrounded by larger buildings
built by General Motors and
Delphi. They are the oldest
aircraft factory buildings still
standing anywhere in the
world—thanks to the car
industry.
A 1911 photo shows
what the factory looked
like from 1910 until 1916,
when aircraft production stopped, but parts
were still made until 1919
for assembly at the Wright
plant in Moraine, Ohio. Wilbur
Wright died in 1912, and Orville
sold his holdings in the company in 1915. General Motors
bought it in 1919.

Hull and Associates formed
Home Avenue Redevelopment
to redevelop the site with the
help of a $3 million Clean Ohio
Fund matching grant.
“The birthplace of the aircraft industry has taken a
major step toward preserving
an historic treasure,” said Brad
White, a principal of Hull and
Associates.
Wilbur and Orville Wright
formed the Wright Company in
New York in 1909 and built the
first factory building in 1910.
Aircraft production ceased in
1916. General Motors acquired
the buildings in 1919 and
soon converted them to auto
manufacturing.

EXTRA
A 1911 PHOTO shows what the factory looked like from

1910 until 1916, when aircraft production stopped.
An enlargement of the historic photo reveals a
horse waiting on its owner, who is inside the factory
building airplanes.

It will be a couple of years
before the Wright factory is
returned to its early appearance and is opened to visitors,
said Tony Sculimbrene, executive director of the National
Aviation Heritage Alliance in
Dayton. The National Aviation
Heritage Alliance is a not-forprofit corporation designated
by Congress as the management entity of the heritage area.
Its vision is to make the Dayton
region the recognized global
center of aviation heritage and
premier destination for aviation
heritage tourism, sustaining the
legacy of the Wright brothers.
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